Opinari

Software development depends on tools, all kinds of tools. Architects use visual tools to design code, developers use IDEs to write code, testers use various tools to test code, and everybody uses reporting and tracking tools to stay up to date on how the project is doing.

Given this diversity of tools, it makes sense to tie them together around a common repository for source code, builds, and other project information. Both Microsoft and IBM offer tools today that take this approach: Microsoft's are built around Team Foundation Server (TFS), while IBM's rely on the analogous Jazz Team Server.

Just last month, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2010, the latest version of its development tool family. I've written a Microsoft-sponsored white paper that walks through this product. The goal is to provide a big-picture overview of the whole thing--TFS, architecture tools, testing tools, reporting tools, and more--that's approachable even by people without much background in Visual Studio. If this sounds interesting, the paper is available here.

A note about terminology: In previous releases, Microsoft called its full suite of integrated development tools "Visual Studio Team System", while the name "Visual Studio" referred to just the IDE. In this latest release, the "Team System" label has been dropped; the name "Visual Studio" is now used to refer to everything. Accordingly, this paper isn't focused on the Visual Studio IDE. Instead, it describes the current release of what was previously known as Visual Studio Team System.

This product contains lots of technology, and where to start in understanding it isn't obvious. The intent of this paper is to provide an approachable entry point into this broad space.